Town may sell assessors' office building

Thursday

Feb 21, 2013 at 12:14 PM

By CINDY DOW

By CINDY DOW

Associate Editor

LAKEVILLE — The Board of Selectmen is considering a plan to relocate the assessors' office to the Town Office Building in which case the former home at 239 Main St. that currently houses the office could be sold.

Selectman John Powderly said he has been looking into what it would take to move the assessors' office to where the rest of the town offices are. The assessors actively use about 900 square feet of the house on Main Street, which is assessed for $260,000.

"My original proposal is that they move back to the town hall, take, if possible, the money from the sale of the building to help modify the town hall so that they can fit in it," he said.

He said there was some discussion about renting an office trailer or something similar to temporarily house the department, but he would be against that because there would be a cost involved, whereas the town owns the building the assessors are currently in. He recommended against moving the department until the move could be directly into the Town Office Building, and he offered to meet with Building Inspector Robert Iafrate and Town Administrator Rita Garbitt to see how and where the department could be located and if the building could be modified at a reasonable cost to accommodate the assessors.

"Not just fit them back in, but whatever modifications you think are appropriate. If you think it's right that we take the sale of the building, or does that have to get turned back in, if you will? ... I don't think the town would have a problem with selling that building," he said.

Chairman of Selectmen Derek Maksy agreed, suggesting that the town is heating the building and paying electricity for it while not receiving any taxes for it. He suggested that the timing of the move should coincide with improvements that need to be done at the Town Office Building anyway, noting that the windows in the town clerk's office need to be replaced and that office will need to be relocated temporarily while that work is being done.

"When that's all done, we can being them in and have a spot for them. Because we may need to put the town clerk down here for a little time, until those windows get done," said Mr. Maksy. "So, if we can find that 900 square feet here, move the offices that we need to move now, and then at the very end, okay, we're all set here and we've accommodated you here."

The board suggested the move should be done to create "one stop shopping" at the Town Office Building instead of having residents show up at the offices and need to be redirected to the building on Main Street to do the portion of their business that requires that department.

"I think everyone agrees that they should be here," said Mr. Powderly.

The selectmen discussed configuration changes that might be made at the town offices to better utilize that space, and whether an office trailer might make sense if the offices for the fire chief and deputy fire chief were put in them. Mr. Powderly noted that he would oppose a change if it means having to upgrade the septic system at the town offices because it wouldn't be worth that expense simply to bring three more employees into the building.

"We know we have a window problem. We know we have a potential sale that we could use toward repairs, whether it's septic, windows, whatever. It's probably time we really considered making this move, and then at some point we go back to the police station and try to figure that out," said Mr. Maksy, referencing the town's focus in recent years on trying to address the poor working conditions at the police station.

Also during the selectmen's meeting the board changed the committee make-up and charge of the Economic Development Committee, reducing the number of committee members and changing who is allowed to vote on the committee in order to try to be more effective.

Mr. Maksy explained that the committee held its first meeting and there were concerns about being able to make a quorum. Mr. Maksy said he was concerned that the building commissioner was listed as an ex-officio member, meaning that he cannot vote.

"It just led to our quorum issue, to try to have enough people for a quorum," said Mr. Maksy. "Because I don't think we're going to see nine people showing up to this all the time. To have someone like that there, but they're not going to be able to vote"¦and I think he would probably be one that would be there all the time."

The original make-up of the committee called for nine members, but there are currently only four people who have volunteered to be on it. A quorum would be five members. Ms. Garbitt explained that state law requires the quorum to be 51 percent of the total number of members who would be on the board; the quorum isn't reduced because the board doesn't have all of the seats filled.

"We can lower the nine to five with associates, or something creative like that, but it's not going to be — people aren't knocking our door down to be on this committee," said Mr. Maksy. "It's going to take some while to get it going. It can always change."

Mr. Iafrate is not a Lakeville resident. Mr. Maksy pointed out that Mr. Iafrate votes on the Master Plan Implementation Committee and the Energy Advisory Committee. Ms. Garbitt noted that other towns do have department heads on their economic development committees as voting members, even though they do not live in town. She noted that the Park Commission had Middleboro resident Dave Fisher on the renovation committee of the Ted Williams Camp commissary building as a voting member due to his knowledge of restaurants.

Though subject to change as more residents express interest in becoming members, the committee make-up was changed to include one selectman, the building commissioner, and three members at large as voting members. The committee is expected to meet once a month on average.